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Comment by tptacek | Hacker News Reader

Short answer: like Zoom, multiparty Jitsi meetings are encrypted point-to-point, not end-to-end, and Jitsi can monitor and record your multiparty meetings.

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But unlike Zoom they never claimed anything different. Which is a huge difference if you ask me.

But you can host your own and audit the source code. That has to count for something, right?

I have done so on the smallest cheapest gcloud instance and it worked alright. Under a cent an hour for privacy seems worth it.

Don't forget to include bandwidth costs, which turn out to be much higher than you'd expect. 1.5 hours of with 6 participants using simulcast corresponds to about 20GB of outbound (inbound is free on AWS). Which corresponds to a little under $2 (at $0.09 per GB).

I thought jitsi sent video from user to user, not via server? Or is that a configuration matter?

It only does p2p if there's exactly two participants, otherwise it goes through the server.

... unless you self-host the server. What you can do with jitsi, but not with zoom.

Then its still not end-to-end encrypted. The difference is that the only point where its no encrypted is under your control as well. So you're right that your meetings cannot be recorded if you host your own instance.

Unlike Zoom, Jitsi never claimed that their system was e2e encrypted which is a huge difference if you ask me. Apparently its a technical limitation of WebRTC, so I'd assume no webbrowser based solution can be e2e encrypted as of now. Which is ashame since the browser compatability makes meetings with people outside your company (or with less tech savy family members) so much easier.

edit: misunderstoot your point

Thanks for the clarification!

As your edit already states, not the point I was trying to make, but still, good to clear this up.

There was interesting discussion yesterday by the devs of mediasoup, why it is not in webRTC yet: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22761816

You can self-host zoom: https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/201363093-Deployin...

Do you know whether Zoom can monitor meetings taking place in Zoom On-Premise Deployments?

Zoom has signed HIPAA BAAs. I doubt they're jumping in on meetings when there's a risk of patient health history being discussed

Let's all get out our pitchforks!

Guess the difference is that Jitsi never says/says that the meetings are end-to-end encrypted. One of the questions on their page is "Are my meetings encrypted? Is encryption end-to-end?" but they never give a give a clear yes/no answer to the last question, instead they describe what they are doing (which is clearly not E2E encryption) and how it works.

But for a layperson who reads this without really knowing what E2E encryption is, won't get their answer by reading the answer, they'll finish reading with their own understanding if Jitsi supports E2E encryption or not.

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